By special arrangement with Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Wicked), Musicalwriters.com offers some of his commentsand tips about making musicals. These have been collected from live question/answer sessions, emails, and elsewhere. Copyright is maintained by Stephen Schwartz. Be sure to also see the new book on Schwartz's career that is full of songwriting ideas. Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked

Don't miss the DVD features

The feature on "The Making of The Prince of Egypt" is videotaped
or filmed spots with many of the people involved including Speilberg, Katzenberg,
Val Kilmer, and all the other stars plus animators, Hans Zimmer, etc. It has a
fairly long section (well, maybe 4 minutes) with Stephen Schwartz, where he makes
comments on some of his original songs, plays the piano, and talks to performers.
We also see a few seconds with him in Egypt during his November 1995 trip to the
region with Katzenberg and about a dozen others.

This segment on him shows what I might call the "focused" Stephen, so it's
only a tiny window on the guy and his work but I think it gives people who have
never met him a little bit of a sense of who he is, in the context of one of his
favorite projects. We also see Steve Hickner and others explaining the significance
of Stephen's contribution to the film. The whole feature will really add to your
awe of what is already an awe-inspiring film.--Carol de Giere, webmaster

BIO: Stephen Schwartz has contributed music and/or lyrics to Godspell, Pippin, The Magic Show, The Baker's Wife, Working (which he also adapted and directed), Personals, Rags, Children of Eden, and the current Broadway hit, Wicked. For children, he has written a one-act musical, Captain Louie. For films, he collaborated with Alan Menken on the scores for the Disney animated features Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney live action film Enchanted, and wrote the songs for the DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt.

For the story of how Stephen Schwartz got started, see our Career Advice page - at the bottom.